Editors' note: how can we better understand and map out the phenomenon of international research collaboration, especially in a context where bibliometrics does a patchy job with respect to registering the activities and output of some fields/disciplines (

Editors' note: if you are exploring GlobalHigherEd today please be aware that we've loaded up two entries today regarding the world university rankings issue. These entries are designed to be complementary, though they clearly operate at different levels. Our sincere thanks to Pablo Achard of the University of Geneva for his very thoughtful guest entry ('Rankings: a case of blurry pictures of the academic landscape?').